Hotels: Hôtel Americano

Hôtel Americano is a sleek boutique hotel with a
cleverly designed facade facade that creates an interesting
interplay with the surroundings while challenging the notions of in
and out.

The program
The Hôtel Americano, which opened to the public in
May 2011, is an industrial-modernist structure designed by the
prominent Mexican Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos
(Taller de Enrique Norten Arquitectos). Rising ten floors
above ground level, the program includes 56 rooms, a roof deck with
a smallish pool, bar, grill and garden terrace, all graced with
breath-taking views of the city skyline, a stunning ground level
restaurant and all the usual amenities of a design hotel in the
luxury category. It is the first hotel in the United States
from Grupo Habita, which operates 11 hotels in Mexico
known for their cosmopolitan panache and fluid design.

The context
The hotel is situated in Chelsea, the Manhattan art gallery
neighbourhood, which seems to be the current battleground of the
world's 'starchitects'. Thus Enrique Norten has joined the ranks of
Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, Shigeru Ban, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and
Neil Denari, all of who have recently accomplished some captivating
work in Chelsea.

The address of the Hôtel Americano is West 27th Street near the
Hudson River and the notable High Line Park. A generation ago,
heavy industry and warehouses dominated the neighbourhood - since
then the party scene moved in and currently the stretch is the
epicentre of New York's high-end art galleries.

This trichotomy - post-industry, party, and art - seems to be
the overall concept behind the layout of the structure, not least
reflected in the defining facade.

The concept
The north-facing entrance facade is covered from top to bottom in
a stainless steel mesh screen. In a subtle hint to the
neighbourhood's industrial heritage the gleaming mesh is created
from salvaged conveyor belts. Depending on the circumstances - the
angle from which one views the building; the amount of sunlight and
so on - the facade looks either utterly impenetrable or flimsily
transparent. At night, however, the interior light from the
individual rooms perforates the screen and lights up the whole
structure - like a building set on fire. Poetically inclined
commentators have gone as far as describing the effect as that of a
building clad in sexy silk stockings. But the construction is much
more than just an aesthetic
show-off.

Between the mesh screen and the rooms facing the street side
runs an 8½ feet wide catwalk creating an essential air buffer,
letting in daylight and views while still permitting the rooms a
sense of intimacy and privacy. It is an ingenious solution and only
connoisseurs will recognise it as an old TEN / Grupo Habita trick
already applied to the Hotel Habita in
Mexico City.

The interior
Hôtel Americano caters to a slick, clubby and well-off clientele
with an interest in art and design. That's a tough crowd to
impress, and Grupo Habita has recognized the need to bring out the
heavy (French) artillery to make the fastidious clientele feel at
home. The interior design is done by the Parisian agency MCH Arnaud
Montigny, famous for having designed the high-end fashion concept
store Colette.

The layout of the rather small rooms is modelled after a
Japanese ryokan (recently Montigny worked with Japanese architect
Kengo Kuma on the Jugetsudo, a teahouse in Paris) with platform
beds and minimalist fixtures. The furniture is mostly Mid-Century
modern, and the materials are Scandinavian in origin with lots of
wood panelling, glossy concrete and squeaky-clean white walls.

This minimal around-the-world attitude even finds its way to the
food menu. The main restaurant serves French fare with a Latin
flare, while the rooftop grill does Mediterranean all summer,
Alpine during winter, and room service comes in the shape of
perfectly square bento boxes.

In a world where the boutique hotel concept is under pressure
from commercial chains, Hôtel Americano delivers an elegant
minimalist solution seamlessly integrating the International Style
architecture with a tight globalised interior design.

Hôtel Americano near the Hudson River
and the notable High Line Park. Photo: Alexander Severin

Rooftop pool by night. Photo: Alexander Severin

The interior design is done by the
Parisian agency MCH Arnaud Montigny, famous for having designed the
high-end fashion concept store Colette. Photo: Alexander
Severin

The north-facing entrance facade is
covered from top to bottom in a stainless steel mesh screen. Photo:
Alexander Severin